When you think of the people stuck under the poverty line, what do you picture? Do you picture children under the care of struggling single mothers, drowning in their attempts to give their kids the best lives possible?
In 2016, 40% of children living with a single mother lived in poverty, compared to only 12% of children in two parent families. From another angle, only 5.4% of married couple families lived in poverty compared to 28.2% of female-headed families. If you are the 1 in 4 children under the age of 18 being raised by a single mother in the United States today, you are over 3 times more likely to be living in poverty.
If you are in a single mother household, your income is probably almost 3 times lower than that of a married couple. The median income for families led by a single mother in 2016 was about $35,400. For married couples? $85,300.
What if you are in a family headed by a woman of color? The likelihood of living above the poverty line is even lower. Here are the numbers, 38.8% of Black female-headed families, 40.8% of Hispanic female-headed families, and 42.6% of Native American female-headed families lived in poverty in 2016. All of these statistics, gathered by the National Women’s Law Center and/or the US Census Bureau, paint a harrowing picture. Poverty really does have a face– and it’s that of a single mother.
Single mothers are responsible for all the same things that a dual income, two parent household would be responsibile for, such as housing, caring-giving of children or elders, education to name a few. Housing itself can often take over half of a mother’s monthly income, with childcare taking another third. Additional costs of food, utilities, and other basic necessities and there is rarely any money left for anything else. What’s more, over 15% of single mothers have not completed high school, and only 36% having a college degree, in other words, education is lacking. Without financial aid single mothers have little or no money to contribute financially to their educational expenses. And don’t forget, women are also burdened by the wage gap. So with low-paying jobs and little chance of upward mobility due to a lack of educational opportunity, single mothers are often stuck in poverty with no way out.
Of all family types, single mother families are the most affected by poverty. We can’t keep forgetting them, leaving them in the vicious cycle of single income burden that leads to poverty. We must see and acknowledge the face of poverty. Because it does have a face. And it’s single mothers.
By: Cianna Allen